VA warns shutdown threatens vets

Nearly 4 million veterans will not receive compensation payments on Nov. 1 in the event of a protracted government shutdown, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki told Congress on Wednesday.

And pension payments would also stop for about 315,000 veterans, he added, as well as for more than 200,000 surviving spouses and dependents.

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Shinseki was the lone witness at a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on the impact of the shutdown on VA benefits and services to veterans. And he drew comparisons between the state of affairs now and those in 1996 when the last government shutdown seized Washington.

“We did not want to be here,” House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) told Shinseki of the current shutdown.

“I didn’t think members would allow this to happen,” Shinseki replied.

While the shutdown in 1996 caused some disruption at the VA, the climate has drastically changed. A generation of soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have added new burdens to a department already strained by an increased number of Vietnam War-era veterans newly eligible for additional care.

“While VA planned for an orderly shutdown in the event of a lapse in appropriations, a government shutdown of this scale is a new responsibility with unprecedented legal and programmatic questions,” Shinseki said.

“As to why we are unable – Congress is unable – to do its business, I will leave that to the members to discuss,” Shinseki said.

Later, Huelskamp apologized.

House Republicans have passed a number of piecemeal bills to fund different parts of the government, including Veterans Affairs. But Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama have rejected the strategy.

Shinseki also argued that the VA’s efforts to chip away at the backlog of disability claims pending for longer than 125 days could be hampered by the furloughs of civilian employees, particularly those at the Veterans Benefits Administration and the Office of Information Technology.

More than 7,800 VBA employees were furloughed as of Tuesday, Shinseki said – and thousands more employees could face furloughs at the end of the month if the shutdown continues. Another 2,754 employees at the Office of Information and Technology have also been furloughed, Shinseki said, disrupting improvements to VA systems.

“This threatens to delay updates to the Veterans Benefits Management System that allows us to help take down the backlog and give veterans quick and accurate decisions,” he said.

The VA has heralded the VBMS technology as a key remedy in killing off the old patchwork paper system and moving toward a digital system. The VA has been making progress, but since the government shutdown took hold nine days ago, the backlog has increased by about 2,000 claims.

“We’ve lost ground we fought hard to take,” Shinseki said.

Veterans’ groups have been unified in sounding the alarm about the impact the shutdown is having on their members.

Gerald Manar, the deputy director of National Veterans Service for the V.F.W. urged lawmakers to “stop leveraging veterans against larger political agendas.”

“Partial funding measures or short-term continuing resolutions will only continue to adversely affect the care and benefits veterans have earned,“ he said in written testimony.

“Veterans are hurting during the shutdown. They need the shutdown to end so they can receive and benefit from the services and support they have earned,” said Alex Nicholson, the legislative director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “But until Congress can re-open the government, our veterans deserve clear, reliable and accurate information.”